


Warmth

by Everlind



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:46:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlind/pseuds/Everlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gakuto is cold, miserable and has only one place left to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth

**Warmth**

It's freezing.

 _He's_ freezing.

His nose feels like a little clump of ice attached to his face and his ears burn from the cold wind. Even though he clenches his jaw, his teeth clatter an eerie staccato beat. His fingers are stiff from it. Those fingerless gloves may look cool and weigh less than a full glove, but when it comes down to doing their job a.k.a. keeping your hands warm? Yeah, not so hot there.

Then again, Gakuto suspects he might've been wrapped up in one of those body-long, genuine white fox coats Atobe's mom likes to wear and he'd still be cold. He could be in the Sahara and the sun could be boiling his flesh off his bones and he'd still be cold. He could've been burning alive and still be cold.

Instead he stands under a night-sky which yawns like a gaping, endless maw above him, the stars its teeth. Gakuto wishes he'd float up, feet disconnecting from the concrete, and into it, spinning away weightlessly.

Through his clattering teeth he sighs and stands on the end of his skateboard to bring up the nose. He tucks it through the loops of his rucksack, trapping it against his lower back and the heavy bag. He doesn't like the weight, the solidness, as though he's been dragged down firmer to the ground, restricting him there, but he's just about past caring.

He's cold and tired and upset. And cold. Really fucking cold. Did he mention he was cold? Because he is. Cold.

Normally Gakuto would've turned to Yuushi. He wouldn't have minded the atrocious hour, the unannounced visit, the lack of explanations. But he knows Yuushi was looking forward to having the house to himself for a night and inviting his girlfriend.

Knowing him, he'll probably score big time.

So yeah, not an option.

So that's why he's standing here, on the sidewalk in the cold, looking at a dark house.

Part of him wonders why he didn't go to Jiroh's place. Well, because he _also_ knows his folks would've phoned Gakuto's parents. His dad would be by to drag him back to that hellhole and he'd probably be up until morning receiving yet another litany about being better, being less of a difficult, sniveling pest, being more useful, being less _himself_ when it comes down to it. Which is exactly the reason he'd packed his stuff and got out of there. Just for one night. Just to breathe.

Why is it so cold?

Slowly he starts up the drive, apprehensive, but with no other option.

All lights are off. Everybody is asleep, tucked into bed, dreaming nice dreams. It's past midnight.

Gakuto stands in front of the door, shivering, nose dripping, for another ten minutes. Then he scrapes together the last of his courage and presses the bell.

Inside Mochi starts barking like some hound from the deepest pits of fire in hell.

Gakuto winces.

Well, at least that'll wake 'em up.

Before long the light in the hallway winks on and there's a voice telling the dog to calm down. The door creaks upon, just a handspan, with the chain still locked. Big brown eyes peer through.

"Gakkun!"

"Shishido-san," he swallows. "I'm sorry. I-"

"Goodness," Shishido's mother exclaims and hastens to slide the key in the lock, freeing the chain. The door swings wide. "What happened? Come in-"

And suddenly Gakuto is sitting on a barstool in the kitchen with a steaming mug of chocolate milk in his hands. His nose defrosts and starts to run. He gives a gross sniffle and apologizes.

Shishido's mother doesn't even notice. Instead she leans against the counter, clad in a fuzzy nightrobe, and studies him. "Gakkun," she says. "Are you alright?"

Gakuto hates that nickname. Passionately. And nobody is allowed to call him that, but for her. When she calls him that, it makes him feel better.

"I'm fine," he mumbles. Mochi whines and puts her head on one of his sock-clad feet. "I'm sorry for waking you up."

"Who is it, sweetheart?" a voice thunders from down the stairs.

"It's Gakuto, don't worry!" she calls back.

"Do I need to call a doctor?" he asks, somewhat less loud.

"He's fine, go to bed, I'll be along shortly," she responds.

Upstairs a door closes.

Gakuto avoids her eyes, fondles one of Mochi's silky ears between his fingers instead.

She sighs and runs her hands through her long dark hair in a gesture that is all too familiar. "You're putting me in an awkward position here, love," she says. "I should call your parents."

"I know," Gakuto whispers wretchedly.

And he does. He understands. But...

"Not the first time I spend the night somewhere else, though," he adds. Stupid Yuushi, why did he have to have his dumb girlfriend over? Horny bastard.

He takes a deep swallow of his drink, licks the mustache from his upper lip. It's good chocolate. "I'll go," he says. "I'm sorry for waking you up."

"You're not going anywhere," Shishido's mother says tartly and cocks an eyebrow at his dangling jaw. "That's right. You'll have to share a bed with Ryou though, Sho is having a friend over."

His eyes widen and his heart misses a few beats as it tries to deal with the surge of sheer relief. "I can-"

"Yes, you can stay," she confirms. "But I want you to call your parents first thing in the morning, am I clear?"

"Yes, ma'm!" Gakuto nods. "Thank you."

For a moment they are locked there looking at each other. Gakuto with his eyes too warm and itchy and the woman with an expression that draws her eyes into a pained grimace. She tucks a lock of red hair behind his ear, before taking his empty mug and setting it in the sink.

"Up you go then," she murmurs as she runs some warm water. "It's late."

Gakuto wishes he had better words than yet another empty 'thank you', but he has none. After one last glance at her slender back, he lets out a heavy breath he didn't know he was holding and takes the familiar route up the stairs. Mochi trots along at his heels, having seen her chance.

Even as he tries to tip-toe as quietly as he can, the door to Shishido's parent's room opens as he slinks past it. Shishido's father, a tree of a man, sticks is head out into the hallway.

"You alright, son?" he rumbles.

"Yes, sir," he manages. "Thank you."

After an uncomfortably intense look there's a nod and the door closes.

Gakuto swallows a sudden lump. Sometimes the contrast is almost too painful to bear. Once he absolutely _hated_ Shishido. Just thinking about this had made him bare his teeth, had curled his toes in his shoes with pure jealousy. But it is not Shishido's fault for having been born in the perfect family, with a perfect mother and a perfect father and a perfect brother and even a perfect dog.

There's people who have it worse than him by far. And then there's people who have it better than him by far. Like Shishido.

He opens the door to Shishido's room as quietly as possible and nearly gets knocked over as Mochi squeezes herself between his legs and darts inside. She slips under the desk and curls up into a corner. Big, brown, doggy eyes silently plead with him.

"Alright," he says under his breath and shuts the door behind him. Who is he to refuse a dog when he's just been taken inside like a lost puppy himself? Exactly.

Mochi thumps her tail on the floor in gratitude.

Meanwhile Gakuto tries to cross towards the bed without breaking his fucking neck. What does Shishido _do_ here? he wonders. The floor is littered with tennis balls, as though an out of control ball-machine sprayed them around at random. Then there's also the controllers of the console, on which he nearly steps, the jumping-rope, which tangles around his ankles and trips him up and a stack of tennis magazines, CD's and comic books that fall over as he knocks into it.

Shishido sleeps through it all, or he pretends to.

In the darkness, Gakuto fumbles with shivering fingers at his clothes, stripping down to his shorts and t-shirt. Trying to keep his teeth-clattering to a minimum, he feels for the edge of the sheets. As though he's known it, Shishido is edged to one side of the bed, curled on his side, back facing Gakuto.

He slips under the comforter, burrowing as deep as he can. Shishido radiates heat and the bed is narrow. His teeth stop clattering. After a moment of listening to the rhythm of Shishido's breathing, Gakuto decides that he is most definitely asleep.

So he pokes him.

Hard.

Shishido comes awake as though he's been electrocuted and Gakuto receives a wrist to his nose for his trouble.

"What the-"

"Watch it!"

" _Gakuto_?"

"Who else?" Gakuto snaps, "S'not like you have a girlfriend."

"Doesn't explain why you are in my bed, you ass!" Shishido bites back.

He's sitting up. Gakuto sees his outline against the meagre light that spills through the window: a slender silhouette with the hair on end like a startled hedgehog. Shishido's always has had formidable bedheads.

"What are you doing here?" He demands, looming over him to see his face more closely. He looks very tempted to shove Gakuto out and tell him to scram.

"Trying to sleep!" Gakuto answers snidely.

Shishido whirls to look at the clock. "It's past one the morning!" he exclaims.

"No, _really_? Bravo," Gakuto mutters, but he feels himself starting to blush.

So yeah, okay, this is weird. The last time they shared a bed together they were, like, eleven or something. It wasn't a rarity then, actually. Sometimes they did sleepovers, all three of them, and there was no issue with crawling into a bed together. Well, alright, there was Jiroh who would either a) steal your pillow and drool on it or b) use _you_ as a pillow and drool on _you_. So they did have fights as to who would have to sleep in the middle, conflicts they resolved by doing jan-ken-pon.

Which Shishido always won, now that he thinks about it.

Back then all three of them had fit in this selfsame bed. Now the two of them knock knees and elbows as they try to find a comfortable position that doesn't involve any _touching_. 'Cause, y'know, really damn weird and all.

"Your feet are cold!" Shishido gasps.

"Your knees are bony!" Gakuto returns.

"Shut up!"

"No, you shut up!" Gakuto bounces back. "Go to sleep!"

"I could if _some asshole_ stopped talking!" Shishido points out. "And you still didn't say what you were doing in my fucking bed, squirt!"

Gakuto opens his mouth, inhales and comes up with nothing. Inside of his chest his heart does its own kind of somersault, but it instead of feeling good, light and free, it hurts. 

"I-" he chokes. His teeth start to clatter again.

There's a silence. Shishido breathes steadily, his eyes catching the light and glimmering. "Are," he sighs, cards a free-hand through his hair, making it an outright disaster. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Gakuto whispers back.

The both of them shift, knock knees again. Shishido's skin is warm and surprisingly soft where it isn't scabbed.

After a long pause, Shishido settles down and curls up, back to him. "Don't budge from your side of the bed," he warns lowly, but most of his bite is gone.

"Don't hog the blankets," Gakuto shoots back and mirrors his position, back-to-back.

There's silence.

Shishido shifts one last time as he relaxes, stretching out his legs more. His breathing softly alters, slowing down, evening out. Still, he's like having a heather in bed, what with the sheer warmth he gives off.

The moment he falls asleep, Gakuto can tell. He shifts deeper under the blankets, basking in the feeling of the toasty soft fabric on his body. Unconsciously his breathing falls into synch with that of the person next to him: in, a heartbeat, out. In, a heartbeat, out. In-

-and then he closes his eyes and sleeps.

***

Gakuto wakes up to darkness, but the kind that has a luminous quality to it that heralds dawn approaching.

For a moment he lies blinking, disoriented, the room and the clutter inside unfamiliar. There's a lingering fuzziness as he attempts to shift, only to find that he can't move right or left. He's trapped between two bodies.

So.

That's still the same then.

The way Jiroh would unfailingly drool on whatever sort of pillow he was using, be it human or not, Shishido would always, without a fault, end up… like this.

It seems that, in his sleep, Shishido is a surefire _snuggler_.

No doubt he won't believe Gakuto if he tells him when they wake up, unless he leaves Shishido where he is, instead of inching away.

Yes, it's weird. Beyond weird. Vast oceans of weird. Endless buckets full of weird plus infinity. And then some.

Yet, on the other hand, he's warm in a way he hasn't been for a while.

Shishido isn't holding him or anything, but he lies tucked up against Gakuto's back, exhaling warm ghosts of breath against the nape of his neck, into his hair. One of his legs is hooked over his shin, skin smooth like butter, except for that one rough catch of a bandage around his ankle. A sharp chin pokes into his shoulder.

On the other side, against his front, is Mochi. She lies with her nose touching her tail, pressed up in the crescent of his body, against his stomach. Gakuto peers at her, wiping a fingertip over the sleep-crusted corner of his eye, and she gives him big watery eyes of pure innocence. Her tail twitches in a sleepy wag.

"Don't think you're supposed to be here," he mouths at the dog and carefully moves his hand to touch her head. She snuffles at his fingers with a wet, cool nose and then licks them.

Then again, is he?

Not by a long shot.

His fingers dig into her soft, shining fur and Mochi sighs happily under his touch as she lays her head back down.

Shishido makes a sleepy noise, shifts his head a little and then breathes out as he slides fully back into his dreams.

And Gakuto?

Gakuto closes his eyes.

  


He's warm.

_-fin-_


End file.
